S.D. GROUP PUTS AFRICAN VILLAIN ON CYBER RADAR

If you have made millions of Facebookers, YouTube watchers and Justin Bieber fans care about the wrongs of one Ugandan resistance leader, you must have done something right.

The overnight villain is Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has kidnapped thousands of children over the past 26 years, forcing them into sex slavery and battle. And the spark that ignited it all is “Kony 2012,” a video by the San Diego-based nonprofit group Invisible Children.

The 30-minute video decrying Kony’s many brutalities and asking that international justice be served has been viewed more than 40 million times since debuting on YouTube just four days ago. ﻿And that was just the beginning.

Since then, #stopkony has been a top-trending Twitter topic in San Diego and the No. 2 trending topic in the United States. The “Stop Kony 2012” Facebook page has acquired more than 150,000 “Likes,” and Invisible Children’s campaign has become a hot topic on The Washington Post, CNN and Huffington Post websites. Even
People.com weighed in with a story.

How did a half-hour video about an obscure figure in a faraway country invade the zeitgeist in seemingly record time? It happened the same way Occupy Wall Street went worldwide and Anthony Weiner lost his job. It happened because one cyber friend told another cyber friend, and suddenly, the whole world was listening.

“People pay more attention to what their friends say on social media than to what they hear from a mainstream organization. If this came from the president or a political candidate, I don’t think we would see this groundswell of emotion and interest,” said Rebecca Coates Nee, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University. “This will be a case study that we will talk about in my classes for semesters to come.”

The “Stop Kony 2012” campaign kicked off on Monday, when Invisible Children — an eight-year-old group dedicated to saving children from the LRA — posted the video on YouTube. Both the video and the “Kony 2012” website feature lists of celebrity “Culturemakers” (Bill Gates, Taylor Swift) and “Policymakers” (George W. Bush, Bill Clinton) with instructions on how to message them about Kony. And at least a few of the celebrity culturemakers listened.

On Tuesday, pop star Rihanna tweeted “#KONY2012 Spread the word!!!” On Wednesday, Justin Bieber retweeted someone else’s “Kony 2012” tweet. Oprah Winfrey chimed in. It even filtered down to the Kardashian sisters, all of whom implored their millions of followers to watch the video and spread the word.

Meanwhile, Invisible Children was reaching out to its noncelebrity followers, an extensive and young-skewing network built through the group’s many visits to high schools and colleges throughout the country. The Invisible Children Facebook page has more than 2 million “Likes” and its Twitter account has more than 350,000 followers, and the video or links to the video went out to all of them.

“Most of the people they engage with are on social media. They become fans on Facebook or Twitter, so when the group has something to say, it spreads very quickly,” said Scot P. Chisholm, founder and CEO of StayClassy, a local company that develops fundraising software for nonprofits, including Invisible Children. “I can’t speak for them, but I don’t think even they knew it would be this viral. We are still trying to figure that out.”

Not all of the attention has been positive. As the “Kony 2012” support built up, old questions about Invisible Children’s finances resurfaced (see story on A7), and detractors criticized the group for oversimplifying a complicated political issue. Citing “a high volume of requests,” Invisible Children did not respond to an email requesting an interview.

But in critiquing the group, its detractors are still talking about it, which added to the online traffic.

Founded in 2005, Invisible Children has worked to raise awareness and money for Ugandan children — focusing on mobilizing American youths because of their energy and idealism. Invisible Children conducts educational programs at schools across the nation and sponsors fundraisers, demonstrations and other public awareness programs.

In Africa, Invisible Children has helped create several tools to warn villagers of an impending attack from the LRA. Since 2010, the local charity has spent more than $240,000 on radios and broadcast towers in Congo; an additional $390,000 has been budgeted to extend this network further into Congo and the Central African Republic. Information from this system is fed into a website that acts as the conflict’s real-time diary.

Invisible Children also broadcasts radio appeals to child soldiers — many of whom were abducted and told they would never be forgiven by their families — telling them it’s safe to return home.

On Invisible Children’s “Kony 2012” website
(invisiblechildren.com/kony2012), supporters are asked to sign a pledge to “help us bring Kony to justice in 2012.” They can donate to the group and buy Kony 2012 merchandise. The organization has dubbed April 20 “Cover the Night,” urging its troops to spend the day covering their cities with posters raising support for Kony’s arrest.

And when it comes time for the next move, Invisible Children should have no trouble making itself heard.

“If their mission is to raise awareness, they accomplished that,” Nee said. “Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.”